Ride-on vehicles for children having a child seat and pivotal front end allow children the freedom of steering the vehicle in any desired direction. Sometimes, a child is too small to control their own course or sometimes a parent wants additional control over an undesired child's riding experience. Some children's ride-on vehicles include a mechanism that enables a parent to co-control the direction of movement of the ride-on vehicles.
In particular, some ride-on vehicles include a wheeled front steering portion that can be pivoted via handlebars for turning the vehicle to the left or right, as well as a rear steering portion that is linked to the front steering portion so that steering may also be controlled by a parent or care giver. The rear steering portion is typically configured as an elongated member that extends upwardly from the rear of the ride-on vehicle, with a control handle positioned on an end thereof and at a convenient height for the parent. The elongated member is mechanically linked to a torque transfer member, which is in turn linked to the front steering portion. Rotation of the control handle causes the elongated member to rotate, which in turn rotates the front steering portion to the left or to the right via the torque transfer member.
Some conventional ride-on vehicles also include a canopy that extends over the child seat to protect and shade the child from direct sunlight, rain, etc. It is convenient to support the canopy from the elongated member on which the parent handle is located. Some conventional designs include a canopy rigidly fixed to the parent handle. However, when the parent rotates the parent handle to steer the vehicle, the elongated member and thus canopy are also rotated in such designs. When the canopy is rotated, it is no longer positioned over the child seat. Therefore, the canopy's protection is diminished or eliminated when the vehicle is turning.
There is therefore a need to provide a children's ride-on vehicle having a canopy that is conveniently mounted so that it remains substantially stationary even while the elongated member is being rotated to steer the vehicle.